Greetings from Fat Hump Land! Excuse me for a moment as I slather myself with mayonnaise instead of suntan oil and drink watered down moose piss instead of beer.

The transplanted Hoosier that I am enjoys making fun of the great state I was born and raised in. My job as a Colts blogger also affords me the lovely opportunity to talk directly with national media reporters and team employees, giving me an oh-so-rosy insight into how EVERYONE hates the Indianapolis market. And for good reason too!

Last year, the nasty, scarlet-lettered “fair-weather” was slapped on the fanbase’s slopped foreheads because they had abandoned the franchise post-Manning. 13 percent of the team’s season ticket holders said “f*ck this shit, I’m going to Bob Evans” once owner Jim Irsay took a moment to stop freebasing cocaine and released four-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning.

Irsay’s reason: He didn’t think Manning would hold up in a 16-game season post-neck fusion surgery.

– The Colts got Andrew Luck with the No. 1 overall pick, and
– His head coach got cancer.

Now, somewhere, there is a Hoosier sitting in front of his Acer Aspire laptop making a nasty frowny-face at my “cancer” comment. He’s folding his fat arms, shaking his triple chin, and is so insulted that I would use Colts head coach Chuck Pagano’s cancer diagnosis as a way to make fun of Indiana that he flipping his Netscape browser window over to FOX News online. This fellow Hoosier likely doesn’t want to hear how it took the head coach getting leukemia for a fanbase to reconnect to a sports franchise that, for the better part of 15 years, did nothing but win lots and lots of football games.

In case you tuned out anything and everything that involved Indianapolis last season, head coach Chuck Pagano was diagnosed with leukemia in late-September of 2012. He left the team so that he could get treatment, and the players responded by going 9-3 without him. The story, and the winning of football games as a result of the coach getting cancer, made the local residents of Indianapolis happy again.

See! All it takes is cancer for Indiana fans to come back! Well, that, and winning, because if the Colts had gone 3-9 after Pagano’s cancer diagnosis, there’d have been several local TV blackouts in “Naptown.”

But, hey, all that is last season, and I’m sorry if my cold, heartless observations about the fanbase I’m part of injury and/or anger you. I’d offer you a pint of some of Indiana’s great local ale as a gesture of good faith, but chances are you don’t drink pints, and “local ale” to you is Budweiser (which is owned by a German company) or Coors (which is owned by a Nazi, which means it might as well be owned by a German company).

This season, the Colts enter with much higher expectations than they did in 2012. So high, in fact, that the owner completely lost his shit on Twitter when the team looked like crap in their first preseason game of 2013!

As it turned out, that Luck kid from Stanford was pretty good in 2012, and so far the preseason results show me that he’s gotten even better. As angry and red-faced as Hoosiers likely are with me for making fun of their penchant for trans fats and fair-weather fandom, that’s nothing to how completely pissed off Vikings, Lions, Titans, Jaguars, Bucs, Browns, Dolphins, and Bills fans are at this Indianapolis Colts franchise that has transitioned from Peyton Manning to Andrew Luck in just one year.

If that isn’t a giant F*CK YOU from the football gods to those other franchises, I don’t know what is.

As much as Indianapolis fans hate me, everyone else hates Indianapolis fans even more. I’m sure more than a few of them said “I hope the Colts get cancer” after Indy was awarded the first overall pick in 2012. The irony drips like milk gravy off a biscuit.

Keys to the 2013 season for the Colts are all these mercenaries that general manager Ryan Grigson brought in during the off-season. Some will make an impact (Greg Toler) while others will piss us off because they won’t stay healthy (Ahmad Bradshaw).

Chuck Pagano is now back on the sideline and looking happy and healthy. Fun-loving fan bashing and satirical Hoosier hating aside, it’s actually quite cool to see him active and coaching again. Stay healthy, coach. Avoid the buffet at any local Indianapolis chain restaurant.

Now, back to fan bashing! I think the Colts are going 11-5 this season, but I see a Lucas Oil Stadium full of overweight white people with bad skin cheering more for the Denver Broncos on October 20th than for the home team. Especially this asshole.

Also, can we stop using the term Hoosier to for Indiana People in general? As far as I’m concerned that term should only apply to IU. The fat humps from the rest of the state who went to ISU and ball state have no right to that term.

First of all this is one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever heard. Indiana natives were referred to as Hoosiers long before IU chose the nickname. Secondly I went to Ball State & almost everyone I know who went there is doing great. From my experience the IU grads who trash the other in state schools are trying to make themselves feel better because they personally haven’t done anything worthwhile with their lofty degree. Could that be the case here?

1. Fuck Pagano and his cancer, no one even cared when he had it last year, except lily white fat fuck sportswriters and talking heads. Does cancer inspire football players to play better? No. And there are no “football gods”, Gregggggggg.

2. The Colts went 11-5 last year with was statistically the luckiest season in 25 years. They are not going 11-5 again.

3. Luck was probably the worst new starter last year (Kaepernick, Wilson, and RGIII were all better) but sportswriters and redneck Hoosiers love him because he is the best new WHITE quarterback (Architecture? So precocious!).

4. Indianapolis is a hell hole and you know how I feel about hellholes. The fact that locals call it “Naptown” makes me want to punch Jason Whitlock even harder.

5. InBev is Belgian, and Three Floyds is in Indiana, so there is at least one local ale that is good.

6. Bob Evans. Mmmmm, grease fat.

I still can’t believe I lived in this state for four years. Nice write-up, and may god have mercy on your soul.

You’re right, setting a rookie passing record for yards is worse than all those other guys. His percentage might not have been stellar, but when you are playing from behind most of the season it won’t be. He still had to complete 4,300+ yards worth of passing.

Kaep, Wilson, and RGIII all had better defenses to help carry them. You also left out Weeden and Tannehill… you know, the other white quarterbacks.

When you understand how QBR is calculated you can use it as an argument, but thanks for proving my point about not having a good defense effects the QB since he has to throw to play catch up.

I don’t care what it is ranked. Part of the problem with the microbrew culture is that people will like what ever their friend says they like. I had Zombie Dust and Gumball Head over the weekend and it ain’t shit compared to Osiris or Wee Mac. In Indianapolis, Sun King is killing it.

You can’t praise the guy for his passing yard totals and then defend his completion rate by saying he had to pass the ball more because the team was behind all the time. Those things are kind of related.

Luck had a lot more on his shoulders than the other rookies. He played behind a much worse offensive line, Bruce Arians’ offense required him to pass downfield more than any other QB, he didn’t have a Lynch/Gore/Morris to lean on in the backfield. He won 11 games despite the Colts having a much worse defense than the Niners, Seahawks, and Skins.

Simply put, he wasn’t coddled like the others, and it resulted in more yards, more interceptions, and a lower completion percentage. That will all likely change drastically this year with Pep Hamilton’s new scheme — fewer yards, fewer interceptions, higher completion percentage.

Andrew Luck was far from the worst rookie. He only set the league record for yards by a rookie QB and helped lead the Colts to several last minute wins. He also did this with one veteran WR, two WRs who were new starters, and two rookie TEs. The defense of the Colts was also atrocious.

And now for a beer rant…

Sun King is better than 3Floyds. As is Fountain Square, People’s, Half Moon, Crown Point, Flat12, and several homebrewers in Indiana.

3Floyds can brew fantastic beer, and Gumball Head is a great one. But they lack consistency, which is highlighted by the massive quality difference between Dark Lord batches. Of the last 5 years, 3 have been sickeningly sweet and nearly undrinkable.

The difference is when 3Floyds fucks up a batch, they sell it anyway and their fanbois still drink it and call it the best shit ever. I had a bottle of Brian Baru that literally smelled and tasted of weeks old BO, and I was called an asshole for appropriately giving it a low score on Beer Advocate.

Sun King doesn’t allow a diacetyl ridden mess out of the brewery, a sour that got infected with acetobacter to be called a “super sour” and sold anyway, or dick people over the way 3Floyds has with Dark Lord Day in recent years.

The brewers at 3Floyds are also notoriously assholish. Every other brewer I’ve contacted has been polite and responsive in email, phone, and in person conversations. Not 3Floyds.

Yes dude some season ticket holders will cancel when a team has its worst season in a decade. Its one of the smallest market franchises and there are lots of other options competing for your entertainment dollar in Indianapolis. Just like you, I live in Brooklyn and am from Indy. You must be the only person from Indy that doesnt know that Hoosiers are CRAZY about the fucking Colts, but I think you DO know that and you are much happier getting the attention than telling the truth. From what I can tell, you have basically been restating the same larger themes as new blog posts for the last few years. The most fair weather fan out there is YOU (well Kravitz, then you). Or are you fan at all? do you just cover the Colts?

Yeah bro, how dare you say we’re not diehards when more than 10% of season ticket holders cancel after the first time the team has missed the playoffs in ten years! You can’t expect people not to give up completely at the first sign of a possible rebuild. Gosh.

From my experience they are mainly hypersensitive conservatives who are easily offended (hence my excessive trolling here). Just aggressively full of misplaced pride and anger. Nothing like their fellow passive-aggressive Minnesota midwesterners.

@ Rod. I am not sure where it comes from. I spent four years at IU, which was a really nice campus with great looking women and good bars and parties, so I can’t complain about Bloomington. I think it is because Indiana natives (not so much college students) are aggressively regional and don’t take kindly to city folk. That, and most of them say “warsh” instead of “wash”.

Maybe I can help. I grew up in Indy and later lived in St. Louis (if you can call that living). I moved to the Baltimore area just as the Colts left and was in The Loo when the Rams were at their best.

Everyone in Indiana qualifies as a “Hoosier” because French settler history says so. Interestingly, people in St. Louis use “Hoosier” as an insult, although why anyone in a shitty town like The Loo feels justified in insulting anyone else is a mystery.

Indiana residents aren’t really backward. They also aren’t particularly friendly. When I was a kid, people liked to say that we were in the “Mideast” more then the Midwest, which might account for the unjustified snobbiness.

All NFL fans are fair-weather, but some NFL markets are large enough to fill the seats even if season-ticket holders cancel. Indy, J-ville, and others like that aren’t, plus as noted there are other things competing for those dollars.

And lastly, any discussion of fatass fan bases begins with Green Bay and ends with Pittsburgh.

@Cuntler – you’re basing your opinion of a state on your experience of nearby rural folk hating on the spoiled kids in a college town? Not claiming Indiana on the whole is any great shakes, but your experience is so prototypical it might as well be the basis of a shitty National Lampoon’s direct-to-Netflix flick.

Cuntler, you need to move up to NW Indiana (near Chicago). I work with almost all Bears fans that are generally pretty cool. It feels like the Chicago area but (a) not shitty (b) not expensive (c) people can actually drive

@Packman, I lived in Bloomington from 94-98 and moved out of Indiana in 1998, never to return. I’ve known my share of region rats growing up, and most were pretty cool. Actually, most Indiana people were pretty cool, but that doesn’t matter. I hate Indianapolis sports teams. H8TARZ GONN HA8T8T8888!!

It’s the people who stay and live in Indiana that worry me. Why, why would anybody do that? Sure, they have world renown shrimp cocktail, but is that enough to justify the years of weight gain, conversations with simpletons and eventual, inevitable loss of hope for a better life?

Brad Wells sucks. Stampede Blue sucks. I don’t care anymore what the rest of you think about Indiana. I’ve lived all over & moved back & married a smoking hot Indiana girl so I don’t really care…but seriously – Brad Wells & Stampede Blue both suck.

Choose your words carefully. There was once a Bills fan named Rocco here. In defense of his region, his most frequent article was his “smoking hot wife”. Then the KSK Kommentariat closed in on him like a congress of rabid baboons. Nothing was left of him.